Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Same here with sports and parents, but I would definitely say it depends on the LI town. Even between LI teams, those based in certain areas (like particular blue-collar southern towns) are much more abrasive / obnoxious and even us LI'ers notice.
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 16 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,075,134 times
Reputation: 15537
Quote:
Originally Posted by gx89
Good luck getting to the airport from Westchester w/o a car. Rite now Bronxville to lga 31 min to jfk 51. Melville to lga and jfk 37 min. Bronxville is minutes from NYC border, Melville is 18 miles to the border of Queens. For me I just take a 20 min ride to Jamaica or 27 to Woodside and hop the airtrain or uber. We are always closer to the airport. Getting 1+ acre isn't really a challenge there is 1600 properties on the MLS with 1+ acre. On LI if you want to be in a good SD and commutable to NYC and to me that means east of 110 ill include Dix Hills you will have to pay $$ for the land. It's no diff in Westchester go find a house in Larchmont on 1+ acre or Ardsley that has taxes under 23k it's not happening. Both places are the same LI is a bit cheaper on taxes and I can get to the airport w/o taking a $125 one way car service.
Be closer to the airport there is a 150+ page topic on the quality of having the airport as a neighbor on CD LI. Maybe you like taking the bus to the airport but most families don't and driving would be the norm for the average family traveler. Those in White Plains can opt for Newark or Westchester Airport which allows direct flight to most major/connecting cities and Florida. If you look at an 8:00am commute into the city , White Plains to GCS 40min/$18, Huntington to Penn 1hr/$22 and which lines have a better reliability/on-time and condition. Oh yes the taxes are so much better on the island, keep drinking the Kool-Aid....
I grew up in Southern Westchester (Yonkers area), lived in Northern Westchester for many years (Peekskill area) and now live in Suffolk.
1. Long Island has lots of craft breweries that are really great. Westchester has some good ones, but not nearly as many. (Blue Point is in Patchouge, Captain Lawrence is in Elmsford)
2. Suffolk is flat, or at least the parts I'm familiar with since the place is so huge that I haven't been everywhere. Westchester is one big hill. It gets more snow than the Island. Yonkers is the second hilliest city in the U.S.A. after San Francisco. When it snows anywhere I am, I am not happy. When it snows in Yonkers and I'm there with a car, I want to cut my wrists and watch the blood drip on the snow. (Yonkers, BTW, is the fourth largest city in the state, not counting New York City in this statistic)
3. Long Island has more golf courses that are accessible to people who don't fall into the "Thurston Howell The Third/The Clintons Of Chappaqua" category. There are six public courses, and the sixth one was added only about a decade ago and was the first new one in about 50 years. You have to have a Westchester County Park Pass to get a decent rate to play on them, or to even be allowed to, unless they've changed the system since I lived there and used it, which would have been around 2007. Bethpage Black is a public course that hosts the U.S. Open and I can actually play there if I'd like, though I wouldn't because I stink like a fish at golf and they want you to keep it moving. Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, where I saw the U.S. Open in 2006, would most likely have me tazed by security if I even suggested I ought to be allowed to play there.
4. Westchester had North Tarrytown, which changed it's name to Sleepy Hollow when the GM plant closed so that tourists would increase our revenue hoping to catch a glimpse of Ichabod Crane. Those of us who grew up in Westchester giggle about this.
5. Right up the road from Sleepy Hollow is Ossining, home to Don Draper on the first few seasons of "Mad Men" and hometown of Peter Falk, of Lieutenant Columbo fame, for whom they named a street. It's also the location of Sing Sing. The town motto used to be "Stay Home On Thursday Nights And Watch Your Lights Dim." The old film noir term "up the river" referred to being sent to Sing Sing, either to be incarcerated for a while or at some point invited by the warden to have a seat. If you're ever there on a Thursday, don't go to the barber and for God Sakes don't sit down!
7. Westchester is not upstate. PERIOD. No discussion.
8. Metro North is better than the LIRR. It's not as big so it's easier to run. Grand Central has no other railroad, so they know what track the train will leave from about a half hour before it's scheduled departure time and so they pull in and open the doors for you. You don't have that ridiculous mad rush that reminds me of The Beatles during the opening of 'A Hard Day's Night" when they're running through the train station trying to get away from their adoring fans who are chasing them down the platform in order to jump on the train with them. Also, what's the deal with all the transfers? Dumbest thing ever. Yonkers is on the Hudson Line. White Plains is on the Harlem Line. You don't get on a train to Yonkers, then transfer at 125th Street (Metro North's Jamaica) to go to White Plains, unless you got on the wrong train in which case you'd get out at 125 since all lines stop there. Trains just run on their own line. I'll assume this is due to the massive size of the LIRR. And Metro North seems to have a smoother ride; some of the LIRR trains need new shocks as the one I rode the other day was like the noon stage out of Dodge City. Cars are exactly the same, conductors dress the same, the computer voice is the same (replace "This Station is...Baldwin...This is the train to...Babylon" with "This station is Tuckahoe...this is the train to...White Plains") but there are no double deckers on Metro North and I like those. We also have Amtrak at certain stations since you can't go directly to Penn from Westchester and since Grand Central wisely tossed them out back in the 80s. Hopefully the MTA won't screw things up as they've just bought GCT. And from what I understand the LIRR will have their own set of tracks, far underground.
9. Long Island has lots of great food, and an amazing music scene. Westchester has that too but out here it's really abundant. I used to love the beach when I was younger and would drive out to Jones all the time, but now that I live here I never go. Not the beaches fault, I've just become lazy though I love the beach huts, except for the embezzling and all that jazz. Thankfully that was settled and I got to catch a bunch of great bands on the beach this past summer. Westchester really only has Rye Beach (meh) though Playland is there which is really cool. And you can go to the beaches in CT without having to take a ferry, which is also cool.
I'll close by saying that I've met my fair share of nitwits in both locations. And I've met a my fair share of very nice folks as well.
I enjoyed reading this so much I concede on point #7!
Be closer to the airport there is a 150+ page topic on the quality of having the airport as a neighbor on CD LI. Maybe you like taking the bus to the airport but most families don't and driving would be the norm for the average family traveler. Those in White Plains can opt for Newark or Westchester Airport which allows direct flight to most major/connecting cities and Florida. If you look at an 8:00am commute into the city , White Plains to GCS 40min/$18, Huntington to Penn 1hr/$22 and which lines have a better reliability/on-time and condition. Oh yes the taxes are so much better on the island, keep drinking the Kool-Aid....
Taxes are based on SD. Generally they are cheaper on LI than Westchester. I looked in Ardsley bought in Plainview. Both towns are very similar in housing prices, demographics, commute etc. Houses in Ardsley Dobbs and Hartsdale all had 17-19k tax bills. Comparable homes in Plainview where at 14k. All homes had prices no more than 10k apart. Plainview taxes suck they are on the higher side.
Family travel is what 1-2x a year I used to fly 35x a year for work. It would
Of been brutal from Westchester. I like Westchester, like LI it has its issues.
White plains is way closer to the city than Huntington. Hicksville or Mineola would be a better comparison. Lirr sucks I take it 2x a week. Metro is better but not by much. I factor in the fatal accidents they have had in the last few years.
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 16 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,075,134 times
Reputation: 15537
/\
So as you have demonstrated it depends what your life style requires. My BIL travels extensively for work when they moved back to Charlotte they chose a neighborhood that was convenient to access the airport, makes sense for him. I chose Huntington to compare to White Plains for the train station they are less than 5 miles apart to mid-town.
Taxes especially school taxes are egregious in the whole NY metro I doubt any locality could be identified as reasonable..:-)
This makes me wish I had a friend or relative in Westchester I could stay with occasionally. No desire here to sink tens of thousands yearly into the NY property tax gaping maw.
This makes me wish I had a friend or relative in Westchester I could stay with occasionally. No desire here to sink tens of thousands yearly into the NY property tax gaping maw.
Well, that is the one thing these places have in common. There's no getting around it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
